English: French photographer Serge Brunier — one of ESO’s Photo Ambassadors — has created this seamless 360-degree panorama of the Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama Desert, where the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is under construction.

The panorama projection has slightly warped the shapes of the ALMA antennas, but it still gives a sense of what it would be like to stand in the middle of this impressive new observatory. The 360-degree view also demonstrates the complete isolation of the Chajnantor plateau; at an altitude of 5000 metres, the backdrop is almost featureless, except for a few mountain peaks and hilltops.

Although constructing such an ambitious telescope project in a remote and harsh environment is challenging, the high altitude location is perfect for submillimetre astronomy. That’s because water vapour in the atmosphere absorbs this type of radiation, but the air is much drier at high altitude sites such as Chajnantor.

ALMA started its first scientific observations on 30 September 2011 with a partial array of antennas. When the observatory is completed, the impressive sight of fifty 12-metre antennas — as well as a smaller array of four 12-metre and twelve 7-metre antennas, known as the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) — will make the isolated landscape seem slightly less empty. In the meantime, photographs like this one are documenting the progress of a new world-class telescope facility.

ALMA, an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.